<insert crazy ramblings here>

I'm a bit late to this bit of internet drama, but I've not seen it on LJ yet, and it strikes me that some of you would be interested in it.

Boing boing caught deleting posts about someone they don't like anymore, and won't say why they don't.

Hypocrisy pure and simple.

{edit

The food at the Cock has taken a turn for the worse.

No longer can you get a nice cheap fish finger sandwich, or chicken kiev. They won't even let you buy a couple of bowl of chips for the table to share.

I tried their steak and ale pie (small, Tesco's own), with chips (arrived as mash) and vegetables (luke warm carrots and peas). Most disappointing.

They did make up for it (with a free pint, and (top secret) bowl of chips) but I'm not eating there again unless they change the menu.

Instead I'm heading over the road to Carluchios. A nice Italian delicatessens, and restaurant. They stop selling sandwiches after lunch time, but you can pick up a hunk of the most amazing foccacia bread and several slices of fine salami for less than two quid. Bargin!

A quick round the block.

I just got a message from 83008 by textcosmo (the new name of cosmotext, who used to send from 67778).

Here's some good tips on how to deal with textcosmo, and their ilk.

1) Call your operator and check if you've been charged.

2) Call the premium rate regulator, on 0800 500212 to get the name and number of the txt spammer, and tell them to ask the spammer to remove your number.
Also register a complaint if you've been charged.

3) Call them (Dialogue Communications on 0870 0790400 in this case) and ask to be taken off their database, and confirm if they are responsible for sending you the message.

4) Call the company that actual sent you the message (Two Screen on 0870 4791158) and ask them to remove your number (belt and braces aproach) and ask them how the hell they got it in the first place.

The answer phone says they'll reply withing 24 hours. We'll see.

Message include incase anyone's searching for the spamming gits.

FreeMsg: Txt YES to 83008 and claim your free reward of 200 SM to use from www.textcosmo.com! Subscribe 6GBP/mnth inc 200sms.16 stop?txtStop textcosmo.com

Bleugh. Attention Theives.

Grr! I've just spent about an hour and half trying to book tickets to Canada.

I was thinking about visiting some friends out there and was told today that aircanada.com had a sale on that finished today.

I visited aircanada.com, entered the flight details and got a price. I thought I should compare it, so looked a couple of other flight sites. By the time I'd come back my session had expired.

So I went back to the start and saw the section on air miles. I haven't flown transatlantic recently so I looked into that and decided I should probably get a bmi card, rather than aircanada's own one. Of course this meant the site timed out.

Back to the beginning again. And this time, when prompted, I tried to create an account on the site to save all my information, so I wouldn't have to enter it again. It wouldn't accept a UK mobile as the contact number, and I have no landline at the moment. Meanwhile, timeout.

Restarting again, I got as far as the payment section, and found that they have implimented "Visa Secure services" which means that the only way to pay is to agree to the terms and conditions of this market^h^h^h^h^h^h security exercise. I read them, clicked acknowledge, and Visa returned me to an aircanada timeout screen.

Round and round the Mulberry bush. After restarting and entering my credit card details again, and passing Visa's Security, I get taken back to aircanada page telling me that they cannot accept payment as the price has changed. It looked the same to me so I asked for assistance on the site, and some called me straight away (I'm glad the time diff is minus 5 hours). He said that the prices are all dynamic and are updated if someone else books a seat on the same flight as you. I pointed out that what with the sale the price hadn't changed. He told me to just enter my card details again, but I had been timed out.

At this point I took a brief break from aircanada. As, after entering my card details so many times I realised my card was about to expire, and I didn't have the replacement yet, so I called my card issuer. It seems they still have my old address and daft me hadn't noticed the statements not arriving (I pay the full amount by DD, and only use it rarely anyway). So I asked them cancel the card they'd sent to my old address, and send me another new one to my new address.

Back to aircanada, enter flight details, payment details. Card declined. Sigh

Back on the phone to the card issuer. It turns out that the last person I'd spoke to had changed my address on the system, cancelled my current card, and left the card sent to my old address active. Grr! They can't reactivate cards, and aircanada don't take debit cards. I couldn't reach my parents, so started begging round the people who'd stayed late at the office, offering to pay cash tomorrow. One very nice guy agreed to pay with his card.

Time to fill in the aircanada site details again, this time with his card. However he got the Mastercard secure verification screen pop up. He failed. He thought he'd used the wrong phone number first, but it wasn't that. Then he spotted that the post code field wasn't long enough to cope with London post codes, and had missed the last letter. So he deleted the space, didn't change the phone number back and failed for the third time. Which blocks you from using your card online.

He kindly filled in the details again with another card, while on the phone trying to unblock his first card via the 0844 number provided (they couldn't, he may never be able to use that one online), and it went through!

So I make the 8 times filling in flight information, 5 credit card number entries, and 4 phone calls. Hasn't the internet made our life so much easier?